Field
The present disclosure relates to a thermal management system with three-dimensional interconnected porous graphene (3DX-IPG) nanostructured films used as thermal interface materials (TIMs).
Background
Graphene is a one atomic layer sheet of carbon atoms with double electron bonds. It is reported that graphene has ultra-high thermal conductivity (˜4000 W/m·K). Graphene and its chemical derivatives such as graphene oxide and reduced graphene oxide have been widely used as conductive fillers in polymer matrices to produce thermal conductive composites. The thermal conductivity of graphene-based composites is typically much lower than the bulk thermal conductivity of graphene, and may not display significant advantages over conventional composite-based thermal interface materials (TIMs). Chemically or physically bonded graphene paper has been proposed as a thermal interface material. The graphene paper is typically produced from chemically exfoliated graphene, and typically suffers from the poor thermal conductivity due to the defects generated in graphene sheets during the chemical exfoliation process. Furthermore, the chemical derivative graphene sheets in graphene paper are typically stacked in parallel, resulting in anisotropic in thermal transport and limiting the thermal transport in the vertical direction.
The use of graphene foam (GF) was described by Chen Z P, Ren W C, Gao L B, Liu B L, Pei S F, Cheng H M. Three-dimensional flexible and conductive interconnected graphene networks grown by chemical vapour deposition, Nat. Mater. 2011; 10: 424-428. That reference describes the production or manufacturing method for GF.